Omaha daily bee., 1887-11-17
SWINBURNE'S NEW POEM.
Extracts From the Tragedy of
"LOCrine."


LONDON, NOV. 10 New York Herald
Cablo-Spccal to the BEE. by the cour
tesy of Chatto & Wndus, who, next Satur
day, publish Swinburne's new tragedy, "Lo-
crime" your correspondent was to-day given
an early copy. The dedication may take
place beside Byrons address to his 'sweet
sister" 1t is to Alice Swinburne and con-
sists of nine stanzas. l quote some lines:
A nine-fold garland, wrought of song-fowers
nine,
Wound each with each in chance enwoven
accord,
Here at your feet lay as on shrine,
Whereof the holiest love that lives is lord.
With faint, strange hues, their leaves are
freaked and scored.
Were all the world of song made mine to
give,
The best were yours and all its flowers that
Though least of all, be this my gift, forgive.
The tragedy is in rhymed verse of ten feet
lines aud in five acts each having two scenes.
The characters are: Locrine, king of
ancient Britain; Gwedolen, his queen;
Estrilda, German widowed queen Sabina
natural daughter of Locrine by Estrilda
Madau, son of Locrine and Gwedolen Gambler
king of Wales, brother to Locrine, and Debon,
lord chamberlain. Estrilda is to Locrine
what fair Rosamond was to her king and
Gwedolen is the jealous queen. The ones
love for her natural daughter is differentiated
with the love of the queen for her son. The
marriage of the king and queen was de con-
venance vet she has learned to love him. But
his heart quits the palace for secret bower
and for his love child who, however
pines for discovery and the palace.
The chamberlain tells the secret
| to Owed olien, who, mad with jealousy, bids
| the son become parricide. King and queen
| quarrel. Then the king and his army, and
| the queen with her son and their rebelious
| hosts, after the fashion of that savage time,
| contest in opposing trays. Locrine is de-
| feated and wounded seeks his Rosamond and
| their daughter in loves bower, where, after
| a brief interview, he dies. His paramour
stabs herself, when to the orphaned daughter
| enter queen, son and soldiers with the former
exclaiming:
| "Dead! And my traitor with his harlot fed
| hellward." Recriminations pass, when
Sabina leaps into the river at hand, with
which three-fold catastrophe, the poem, for
it is not play, abruptly ends after a speech
from the queen, in which, struck with the
dead beauty of her whom she had called
"harlot," and of the daughter, her love for
| Locrme returns and she pronounces forgive
| ness.
Such is the rather common place story,
| with love and jealousy as its key notes, which
Swinburne has produced in verse in which he
embodies all his peculiarites of style, imagery
and dction with more of his faults than his
excellence. Yet when "a reader begins the
volume, the title of Bulwer's novel occurs to
him as queston-What will he do with it I
and an interest is begotten which forces the
finishing of it at one sitting Lines in the
poets best vein abound, preceded and fol
lowed by conventional lines. Take these as
specimens of fine lines
Thy speech is fair and soft, as breathes the
south,
Which thus kiss to silence on thy mouth.
| Or:
These limbs and lips, made thine by contrac,
| made
No wife, no queen, scrvant-nay thy
slave.
| Or;
No soft reterance Of my name
| Can sing my sorrow down,
That comes and goes and colors hope
With fear and love with shame
Or:
There is no death save fear Of death.
| Or:
could not shut tonight mine eyes unkissed
Perhaps a scene hereafter to be pro
Eouncedthe most polished, tuneful and al
Turing of the volume-will be scene be
tween the embowered mother and the loved
child when expecting the lover king There
is 4 song by the maiden which must soor
doubtless be welded TO music, one verse o.
| which runs:
Had wist, o Spring, said the swallow,
| That hope was sunlit mist,
And the faint light Of it hollow,
In thy woods had not heard me sing.
! Thy winds had not known my lips had fal
. tered
Ere thine did, Oh Spring,
Had wst!
There Is much in the theme Of "Locrine'
to remind one of Swinburne's early dreams
"Rosanond" and 1.-The Queen Mother br
; there is 10 such power and only touches o